Survivors Describe Ordeal On Launch Lost In Storm

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31659, 20 April 1968, Page 36

Survivors Describe Ordeal On Launch Lost In Storm

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, April 19. Three survivors of a wrecked Whitianga launch thought they would die as they huddled in a crevice of a wave-swept rock in the early hours this morning.

Until dawn the two women and a man did not know where they were after struggling ashore through breakers after the 42ft big game launch Yellow Fin was wrecked. A fourth person, the skipper of the Yellow Fin, has been missing since before the launch was flung ashore on Thursday night. He is Gordon Lawrence Chaney, aged 41, of Hannan’s Road, Whitianga, married with three children. The three survivors are Mrs Dorothy Heather Marian Sewell, aged 39, of Whitianga, Mrs Louise Nell Rivas, aged about 43, of Coopers Bay, and Robert Hooker, aged 21, a mechanic, from Whitianga. Tonight all three were still under sedation to counter exposure and other effects of their harrowing experience. GIVEN COURSE However, lying in bed at his home in Whitianga tonight, a groggy Mr Hooker told the story of the last minutes of the Yellow Fin. “The skipper had given me a compass course and I was steering,” said Mr Hooker. “He said he was going on deck to stow the anchor rope and batten down the hatches “When he did not come back after a few minutes I asked the women where he was. “As soon as we found he was missing there was a bit of a panic. “Then we calmed down. We went back the way we had come. I didn’t know what the compass bearings should be so I turned the compass round a half circle and steered on the same figure.” LOST IN STORM Mr Hooker said that as the Yellow Fin made a desperate

search for her lost skipper the weather closed in. “We got lost,” he said. “It was pitch black. You could not see anything. It had been choppy, but not rough, until this rain storm. Mr Hooker said he thought they were well clear of the land as they had not been long after passing the Twin Rocks, well out to sea. “But when we hit the rocks it was without warning,” he said. “You could not see the rocks from the launch.” WOMEN HELPED He struggled through the breakers to help the two women ashore. “The launch was washing back and forth on the rocks,” he said. “It was some time before she went out of sight We stayed on the rocks. It was very cold and we huddled in a crevice. I threw a rubber mattress over us to keep the rain off but it didn’t help much. We were shivering and nearly dead with cold.” Mrs Sewell, recovering in bed today from her ordeal,, said: “We were like drowned rats. We crouched in the crevice while the thunderstorm continued. “We didn’t know what we had struck or where we were. There was no light and a big swell rushing in on us. Then there were all the rocks around us. “If it hadn’t been for Robbie I don’t know what would have happened. He helped us out onto the rock. He carried me ashore. Then

he went back for blankets but they were all wet, so he brought a rubber mattress.” CARRIED ASHORE Mrs Sewell said that later, when it began to get light, Mr Hooker had found a track from the rock to the shore and had lifted her from the rock and carried her ashore, through water waist deep. “I could never have got up there on my own,” she added. The survivors were finally helped back to Whitianga by a search party. A Mayday call on Thursday night is now known to have been sent by the Yellow Fin after Mr Chaney went overboard. The wreckage of the year-

old launch was found early today on Lion Rock. Experienced Whitianga fishing boat skippers say that during the passing of a cold front on Thursday night, winds rivalling those during the cyclone last week were experienced. At least five launches and an aircraft will continue the search for Mr Chaney at first light tomorrow. Police and civilian helpers will also search the coastline. The Yellow Fin, a ferrocement launch, was in the news in January when Mrs L. M. Langton, of Mount Albert, caught a 510 pound broadbill off Mayor Island from it. She was the first woman to land such a fish in New Zealand.